


Sing Thee To Thy Rest

by SailAweigh



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Challenge Response, Community: st_respect, Deathfic, M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-15
Updated: 2010-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:05:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailAweigh/pseuds/SailAweigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim was lucky that he had Bones around to show him the ropes when he woke up from his last away mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing Thee To Thy Rest

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Current mood:**

| 

  
satisfied  
  
---|---  
  
**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[fic](http://sail-aweigh.livejournal.com/tag/fic), [kirk/mccoy](http://sail-aweigh.livejournal.com/tag/kirk%2Fmccoy), [ship wars prompt 5](http://sail-aweigh.livejournal.com/tag/ship%20wars%20prompt%205), [star trek 2009](http://sail-aweigh.livejournal.com/tag/star%20trek%202009)  
  
  
**Title:** Sing Thee To Thy Rest  
 **Author:** [](http://sail-aweigh.livejournal.com/profile)[**sail_aweigh**](http://sail-aweigh.livejournal.com/)  
 **Pairing:** Kirk/McCoy, AOS  
 **Beta:** [](http://lindmere.livejournal.com/profile)[**lindmere**](http://lindmere.livejournal.com/)  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Word count:** 4039  
 **Warnings:** Death!fic, cussin' and kissin', based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale: [The Angel](http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheAngel_e.html).  
 **Disclaimer:** I only wish they were mine, I'm only having a little fun with them, I promise to put them back in one piece when I'm done. Please don't sue.  
 **A/N:** Written in response to [](http://community.livejournal.com/st_respect/profile)[**st_respect**](http://community.livejournal.com/st_respect/) Ship Wars Prompt #5: Fairy Tale.

  
"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty."

Jim felt the toe of a boot nudge him under the ribs. Which meant he must be on the ground, not in a cushy bed enjoying a relaxing lie-in. In fact, he could feel pointy little blades of grass poking him in the cheek. It was uncomfortable; he should remove himself from the ground. A carpet of pink and white flower petals spread across the ground in front of him. If only the ground felt as soft as it looked. Groaning, he pushed his upper body away from the earth beneath him and felt a string of drool follow him up. Ugh. He rose to his knees, then sat back on his heels using the back of his hand to wipe sleep spit off his face. How attractive.

"Bones, where are we?" He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Then rubbed them again in disbelief upon looking around. "We're on Earth? What are we doing there?"

"We're not on Earth, Nimrod." Bones crouched down next to Jim and looked him in the eyes. "What's the last thing you remember?" he asked. Why wasn't Bones doing his usual schtick from when away missions went wrong? He hadn't used his thumbs to pull his eyelids down to look at his sclera, hadn't palpitated the glands in his throat, hadn't even laid the back of his hand against his forehead. This wasn't the Bones that Jim was familiar with at all.

Jim had to put effort into thinking for a second. It felt like all his senses were coming back on line after being under sedation for an operation; it was so hard to think. They'd been scheduled for a diplomatic mission on Marejaretus VI to talk with the Oolan about, about... trade. They had desert hardy plants that might do well on New Vulcan.

"We were getting ready to beam down to Marejaretus VI. The last thing I remember is telling Scotty to energize. What happened? How'd we end up on Earth?" Jim scrubbed a hand over his hair and shook his head in puzzlement.

Bones rolled his eyes in exasperation; that was something familiar. "Some genius you are. I told you already--not on Earth."

"But those are magnolia trees; that thing is a peony bush." Jim pointed out various other flora and some fauna. A squirrel chattered at them from the branches of a pecan tree. It sounded pissed and kept running out to the end of the branch above his head and glaring down at him. "Bones, if you weren't telling me different, I would swear we were in Georgia!"

An outraged chittering came from above him and Jim felt something sharp smack him on the back of the head before dropping to the ground. He looked up wide-eyed at the squirrel perched overhead.

"See, Jim? Even animals think you're stupid. Last time I'm sayin' this, darlin'. You. are. not. on. Earth."

Jim jumped up explosively, strode over to the trunk of the tree in front of him and slapped the trunk. "This is a pecan tree, Bones. It's native to south-central North America. We even had a few in Iowa, but we never had magnolias.

"Jim, think. The transporter on the _Enterprise_ couldn't have beamed us back here from the far side of the Alpha quadrant." Bones bent over and picked up the pecan the squirrel had pelted Jim with and started tossing it from hand to hand.

Jim threw his hands up in the air. "Then where are we?" he shouted. "You're not making sense."

Bones tossed the nut toward the squirrel above them. Jim gaped as the squirrel snatched it back out of the air, carrying it off to hole in the tree trunk.

"Well, we're not in Kansas like we're not in Georgia, kid, and a transporter pad ain't the yellow brick road."

Jim crossed his arms defensively and glared at Bones. "Dammit, Bones, quit beating around the bush. Where. Are. We? And did that squirrel have _hands_?" His voice squeaked even if he wouldn't admit it.

Bones walked over to him, placed both his hands on Jim's shoulders as if to keep him anchored to the ground while he exhaled one word in a low voice, "Heaven."

There was a microsecond pause. "Bullshit." Jim turned his face away in disbelief. He raised his hands to brush the other man's arms aside, but found himself pushing against what suddenly felt like steel bars. He struggled futilely for a second before his hands dropped to his sides; he seemed to shrink down into himself a little, tucking his chin down against his chest.

"Jim. Darlin', look at me." Bones reached one hand up and caressed the side of Jim's face, urging it towards him.

A lambent glow surrounded him, throwing his features into shadow. Behind him rose amorphous appendages that were the source of the glow. Jim looked him up and down, tears in his eyes. "Oh, God, Bones; what did I do to you?" he asked brokenly.

Strong arms pulled him into a warm chest. "Hush, now. Not your fault. What you see is what I've always been since you've known me."

Jim might have released a whimper. "What have you always been besides a crotchety old country doctor who hates space, danger and darkness?"

Laughter rumbled in Bones' chest against him. "Well, it just so happens I'm an angel, kid."

Jim's head reared back. "Huh, what?" he squawked.

"You heard me." His hands stroked up and down Jim's back, loosening up the muscles that had tensed up with distress. Jim relaxed into that welcoming hold for the merest second, before perking up and stepping away. He started turning in circles, like a dog chasing its tail.

Bones stood there with a quizzical look on his face watching him.

Jim kept circling, reaching over his shoulders, slapping at his back, feeling around for something he obviously expected to be there.

The other man finally asked, "What in blue blazes are you doing now?"

"If this is Heaven and you're an angel, then I must be one, too, yeah? Where's my wings?"

Bones shook his head. "Not how it works."

Jim stilled. "Tell me how it works, then."

"I'll do better; I'll show you." Bones took Jim by the hand and led him toward a nearby stream. Once there, Jim could see the surface of the water, where masses of flower petals in all colors floated with the current. Their myriad scents rioted through his senses, but never became overwhelming; it all merely brought a sense of peace and delight with it.

"Pick one."

Jim reached down into the water, scooping out a flower with large pink petals. "The wild prairie rose, Bones. They grew along the back fence and smelled so beautiful. Mom would make tea out of the rosehips. When we had scratchy throats, she'd throw in a little honey and whiskey. Chock full of vitamin C; better than any cold medicine you could find."

"Good choice, kid. Hold on, we're going for a bit of a ride."

"Why, what's going to....whoa!" Jim latched onto Bones' shoulder as hard as he could with the hand not holding the flowers. The scenery was changing around them, telescoping in and out, colors whirling dizzily around his head until they settled into a panoramic view of a road leading from a farmhouse that looked familiar. He also realized they were looking at it from an elevated angle and he knew darn well that Iowa wasn't known for its dramatic changes in altitude. He looked down and nearly dropped the flowers he was holding.

"Bones? Are we flying?"

"Do you see any wings on me?" came the sarcastic reply.

"Well, yeah, sorta. Maybe? They glow, dude. What are they, if not wings?"

"They're Wormhole INducing GeneratorS. And, yeah, some angels call them WINGS for short; it's easier than explaining traversable Lorentzian wormholes to the masses. But they aren't wings. Do you see feathers on them?"

Jim couldn't, so reached out to feel for himself.

"No! Don't do...." Bones broke off as they started to tip downward at an alarming angle. The weight seemed to shift drastically upward in Jim's stomach as they plummeted towards the ground. He pulled his hand back and they started to slow, pulling level with the ground and then returning to a hover. Bones' eyebrows seemed to dance a jig across his forehead before they lowered in a glare of doom. A vague greenish cast appeared on his face and one hand clutched at his stomach briefly.

"Dammit, Jim, keep your hands to yourself!" he snarled. "Personal boundaries; learn to recognize 'em. Learning to use these things without causing random anomalous craters in the landscape was no walk in the park. It's not like they give us lessons and a learner's permit with these things!" He seemed to hold his breath for a moment and then gritted out, "I may throw up on you. Don't do that again." A long, slow exhale seemed to bring a little pink back to his cheeks. Bones breathed out a quiet mantra, "Low and slow, low and slow."

Jim pulled his hand back and looked at it; it felt like the pins and needles after a limb gets slept on, but it didn't hurt. He shook it out a little, clenching the hand a couple of times to get the last few kinks out.

Looking up, Jim realized Bones had flown them closer to the house. It made Jim a little nervous. He didn't think his mother was currently on Earth, but he didn't want her to see him this way. Could she even see him this way?

"Bones, aren't we going to be seen? We're kinda obvious, hanging here in mid-air."

"Don't sweat it. One of the things WINGS allow angels to do is to create an Alice universe; we become neither matter nor anti-matter, we cease to exist outside of space-time. No one can see us except other angels"-- he considered for a moment--"and sometimes squirrels."

A plaintive whine came from Jim. "I thought I was supposed to be the genius. Where'd you learn about this stuff?"

Bones rolled his eyes. "I'm an angel, Jim; I just know it, okay. Now, pay attention, we're almost there."

"Okay, fine. But what are we doing here? No one should be home. I don't think Mom is scheduled to be back on for another three or four months."

"It's not just where we are, it's _when_ we are. Look."

Jim looked down at the familiar dwellings. Through the open doors of the barn he saw a young boy washing a bright red car in the shadowy interior. His attention was caught by another, slightly older, boy banging the kitchen door shut behind him and practically throwing himself off the porch and down the driveway.

"That's Sam!" Jim exclaimed. "This is the day he took off. It's also the day I trashed the 'Vette. God, was I pissed at Frank for driving Sam away."

Jim was so focused on watching the scene play out he didn't realize immediately they were drifting away to the west.

"Whoa. What's that all about? We should stick around and watch me trash the 'Vette! It was awesome. I calculated that sucker absolutely perfectly; put her in a drift and made an egress that would have made an angel proud, Bones," he crowed, gesticulating emphatically at the diminishing tableau.

"Jim, you didn't calculate jack shit. The only reason you're here, today, is that you didn't die that day like you were supposed to." It was a good thing that Bones was holding him up with both arms, because Jim started struggling wildly. "Calm down, it won't kill you if I drop you, but all the power compensating I'm having to do is making me queasy." A slight burp came out of his mouth as he said that. "We can watch, but we gotta stay out of the way of the other me; we have enough potential temporal paradoxes in the making to create ten big bangs much less one, which is why we're here."

Jim shook his head, whether in confusion or denial he wasn't really sure. Nothing was making any sense anymore. He was dead, but he was here with Bones and felt awful solid. He should have died, but he didn't and now he had. What was happening to him? Was any of this real?

"Why, Bones? Why is all this happening?" Jim hung limp in Bones' embrace, the flowers threatening to fall out of his hands.

"Shhhh, darlin'. This was what was meant to be. The Powers That Be had to correct a grievous wrong and this was the only point in time where they could make it happen." Bones' was still drifting along; young Jim and the Corvette were following, fishtailing up a dirt road. It overtook them, heading straight for a quarry ahead. "Watch now, you're going to think this is funny."

"Why?" Jim asked bitterly. "Because I'm going to do something incredibly stupid and get myself killed?"

"No, because you're going to see the first time I ever had to fly and you know how much I hate flying. Do you know how hard it was to track you, keep myself aloft and not throw up on myself?" Bones pointed at a blotch whose trajectory looked something like the flight path of a bumble-bee careening from one wall of the quarry to the other. A faint puff of dust occasionally exploded off the side of the quarry as the object impacted with apparent force. Jim winced in sympathy.

"Christ, Bones, you need a GPS navigator for those things. Seriously, you're first time flying, ever?" He got a stricken look on his face. "That means you had just died! How, I mean, why, what...?"

"That's not what's important right now. Just watch."

They watched as the car approached the drop-off, dust flying around it as the angry adolescent driving it threw it into a skid. The door flew open and as young Jim threw himself out of the car another figure could be seen flying into view and trying to grab him from behind. Unfortunately, the action appeared to rebound on the new figure and he bounced off young Jim's back like a cue ball rebounding off the rail. The new figure shot off over the edge of the quarry along with the car. Young Jim appeared to have been slowed by the glancing blow, but his momentum was still dragging him right over the lip of the quarry. Jim could hear Bones muttering to himself, "Not enough forward power in the cells, shoulda waited longer to reverse polarity; Newton's third law of motion, dummy."

"Hey, Bones, didn't you say they didn't give you a manual and this was your first time flying? I think you did pretty well." Jim patted Bones on the shoulder in commiseration.

"Only barely. Look down."

Jim did. He could see the other Bones tumbling head over heels down into the quarry. He sucked in a sharp breath before remembering this was an angel. Still, his breath released slowly in relief as he saw the novice angel straighten, reverse direction and head once more for where young Jim was hanging by his fingers from the edge of the quarry. Hands supported the boy's feet and pushed him higher until he clawed his way over the lip and lay gasping at the edge of the abyss. As Jim and Bones watched, the younger angel fluttered away to the west, eventually disappearing with a little pop, like a soap bubble blinking out of existence.

"Don't look so sad, Bones. You got the job done. I didn't die!" He paused and said it again, slower. "I didn't die then...because The Powers That Be needed to right a grievous wrong." He looked at Bones, who looked steadily back at him.

Bones held out his hand, again. "C'mon, let's go back to Heaven. We've got unfinished business."

Jim took his hand, more prepared this time when the scenery around him melted and twisted from one place to the other. He looked over to see that Bones had his eyes closed and made a wry grin.

They arrived back at the same field Jim had woken up in. He looked at the familiar trees. This time, he noticed a paddock off to one side with horses lazily cropping at the grass. "So, this is your version of Heaven, Bones? Georgia on your mind?"

The other man shook his head. "No, Jim. This is your Heaven. When you died, your soul went to where it felt most loved."

Jim looked around in amazement. "Huh. So, where's yours?"

Bones flushed and fidgeted. "You'll laugh."

Jim raised a hand and crossed his heart. "Show me, please?"

The scenery flickered around them, the light dimming and taking on a metallic sheen. The walls around them glowed a soft silvery-white and Jim could see a view screen straight in front of him. He spun in a circle as he took in the captain's chair, the navigator's console, the science station and the comm panel; all exactly the way it was on the _Enterprise_ , minus the people. It flickered again and switched back to faux-Georgia.

"Me, Bones?" he choked out.

"'Course you, moron."

Bones leaned in and kissed Jim. It was like Bones was the tuning fork and Jim's entire soul rang in harmony with it. When Bones pulled away they both had a dazed expression on their faces. "It's never been like that when we kissed before, Bones. How come it's never been like that before?" Jim clutched at Bones' hips and shoulders, shivering with the residual waves of feeling.

"Dunno, Jim. Never kissed anyone in Heaven before. Let's walk; we need to get you sorted."

They walked past the paddock, where Bones recognized one of the horses and stopped to pat him and stroke his nose. Jim looked at the horse thoughtfully. "But, I wouldn't know what your horses looked like. You must be bringing something to the mix here now."

"You're right, Jim. My happy place is wherever you are and, well, this is it, now."

Jim leaned against the fence alongside Bones. "Is that good or bad? It seems to me you've spent the past fifteen years hauling my ass out of the fire; aren't you tired of it yet?"

"Don't get the wrong idea, kid, I'm no guardian angel. I was just the one they tapped to fix a problem that needed fixing. Once I kept you from dying, my job was done. I could have come back to Heaven and lived off the fatted calf."

"Why didn't you?" Jim kicked desultorily at one of the fence uprights. "You seemed awful alive and human when I met you on that shuttle to Starfleet."

"I'd always wanted to be a doctor and I wasn't going to let anything like death get in the way. The Powers didn't seem to mind. You don't question why they do things. We're like ants to them, strolling across their picnic blanket. They can either choose to let us continue on our little ant-like paths or they can squash us. Most of the time, they just leave the picnic out for us to enjoy, while they go off categorizing the local flora. They can be a little absent-minded unless the end of the universe is imminent." They started walking again.

"So, you're with me because you want to be with me, not because you have to," Jim said quietly.

"I swear I'm going to cancel your Mensa membership. Jim, darlin', come over here." Bones led them back to the stream of flowers. "Pick another flower. The first one was to spur your memories. We'll make this the offering to The Powers."

"We have to make offerings?" Jim looked. "What's next? An offering of burnt meat?"

Bones rolled his eyes in disgust. "I told you, these folks have a hankering for plants: flora, not fauna. Do you ever listen to me?"

Jim scoffed at that, but looked to the stream. After careful consideration, he plucked out a large clump of bedraggled flowers on broken stems that didn't seem to have much life left in them. Bones smiled in approval.

The next thing Jim knew it was like someone had turned him inside out, brushed his insides with steel wool, then turned him back right-side out, minus his skin. He felt naked to his soul, even though he knew he was completely dressed. He shook himself like a horse shaking off flies and checked to make sure he still had his flowers. He looked nervously at Bones, who just pointed at something and gave him a push.

A solitary pecan tree stood there like a beacon. Jim walked straight toward it until he saw a hole in the tree. He stood there for a moment, undecided, and when nothing appeared to be happening shrugged his shoulders and left the flowers propped in the hole thinking this was all pretty lame.

He'd barely thought of turning back when a squirrel popped out of the hole and landed on his shoulder. It might have freaked Jim out, but since "freak" had seemed to have become the byword of his day, he just stood while the squirrel reached a hand out (a hand!) and held his chin, turning his face side to side. Jim closed his eyes as a sweet breeze seemed to flow up around him; a kiss was laid against his forehead that warmed him from top to bottom, inside and out. When he opened his eyes, the squirrel was gone and the broken flowers that he had left in the tree had taken root around the base of the tree; glorious golden-throated white trumpet flowers bloomed profusely amongst the dark green leaves. The flowers gave off a bell-like tone that chimed a sweet harmony around him. He had never felt as at peace before in his short life as he did then.

"You did good, kid. Not every offering is given a part in the music of the spheres." He took Jim's hand and leaned in to whisper in his ear. "Look behind you."

Jim looked. Behind him rose the same glowing appendages that had so startled him when he saw them on Bones. He got a dopey grin on his face at the sight.

Bones leaned in for a brief kiss. "Thank you, Jim. You've made me very happy."

"I just did what you told me to do." Jim smiled against Bones' mouth.

"No, you did something very selfless to make someone else happy without stopping to think about yourself. It's that giving soul that drew me to you originally and why I will never leave you. Do you even know what those flowers are?"

Jim shook his head. "I've seen them on your desk before, though."

Bones raised a hand to his face, stroking his thumb across his lower lip. "Those are azaleas; my mother's favorite. I keep them around to honor her. You couldn't know that, but still you try, and you succeed. You don't deserve to be here now; you should be in the world, being heroic and captaining the _Enterprise_ , but I am so damn grateful to have you here with me, I can't really care that The Powers That Be said you couldn't stay once the apocalypse was averted." Bones bit his lip. "Do you mind? Being stuck here with me?"

Jim grinned, nipping at the thumb playfully. "Only if you don't mind being stuck with me, Bones, because with you is the only way I want to spend eternity." Saying that, he tugged Bones' hand down by his side and then with another tug forward, he pulled Bones up into the air and asked, "What do you say we head for the second star on the right, straight on 'til morning?" With a whoop, Jim shot off into the sky, Bones trailing by the hand.

"Dammit, Jim, don't make me throw up on you!"

Behind them the flowers rustled, whether in laughter or agitation is unknown, but the chittering coming from the tree just sounded resigned.

 _  
**Fic: Sing Thee to Thy Rest (Kirk/McCoy, STXI, PG-13)**   
_


End file.
